


Happy A-Day-You-Might-Have-Been-Born!

by Mommadon



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Feel-good, Fluff, Fun, Ladynoir | Adrien Agreste as Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25793053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mommadon/pseuds/Mommadon
Summary: Ladybug knows Chat Noir is up to something, but he's being paw-fully tight-lipped about it.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 32
Kudos: 177





	Happy A-Day-You-Might-Have-Been-Born!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyGorgeous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGorgeous/gifts).



> Happy happy birthday to my dearest friend and amazing beta, Airie! Thank you for your friendship for all these many years, and for staying up late to talk Miraculous with me. I wish everyone were as lucky as I am to have you as a friend. This piece is for you. Love, Mommadon
> 
> Also, a huge thank you to my friends on the Miraculous Fanworks Discord server for your help brainstorming, and to Khanofallorcs and SteelBlaidd for reading through this for me.

“Ok, Chat, spill it.”

“What?” Chat Noir swished his tail behind him innocently. Ladybug dug her fists into her hips and tapped her foot impatiently.

“You’ve been totally weird for days, and now you’re unfocused and, like, _giggly_ or something. So, just… out with it!”

“Giggly?” he grinned broadly, “Me? I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

She rolled her eyes. “Something is going on. Quit trying to deny it.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about. How about we just finish patrol and meet up at the precinct in thirty minutes? I know Mayor Bourgeois had something he wanted to show us.”

Ladybug scrutinized her partner for a while. He was still wearing that dopey, mischievous grin, but she couldn’t stay angry at him. No matter how suspicious he was being, she knew it was harmless fun. And, gosh darn it, he was being _cute._ Terribly cute. So, while she knew she should focus and take patrol seriously, she bit her lip and reassessed the situation. There wasn’t an akuma tonight. They’d just fought off one that morning, so she didn’t expect another so soon. There was still almost a month before school started. Her projects at home were either complete or at a good pausing point. She could afford one evening off.

“Ok,” she finally agreed, raising an eyebrow at him playfully, “Race time.” His ears perked up adorably. “But the rules are—we go to each of the places that Officer Raincomprix asked us to survey—” Ladybug held up the piece of paper they’d been given by the police officer shortly before they met up on the precinct rooftop, “—and do something nice for another person at each of them, for at least five minutes at each.”

His grin widened. “Ok, you picked the rules, can I pick the prize?”

“Uh,” she pondered, “sure, why not?”

“Ok, if I win, you come hang out with me for at least an hour afterword. And if _you_ win,” he wagged his eyebrows and flicked his tail, “I tell you what I’ve been up to this week.”

She had a sneaking suspicion that Chat had just loaded the dice in his favor, but she didn’t care. Again, harmless. “Ok, deal,” she winked.

He started stretching and jogging in place as a warm-up with his eyes squeezed shut, and recited quietly to himself, “I am Chat Noir, champion of justice! In the name of the Moon, I will right wrongs and triumph over evil, and that means…” he winked at her, “you!”

“Chat?” she queried, totally confused at what he was talking about. But then he poked her in the nose and tore off into the night. “Chat! HEY! I didn’t say go!” But he was long gone.

* * *

The first stop was a low-income daycare. Ladybug landed deftly and started searching the crowded space. “Hello,” she called to the children, “Officer Raincomprix asked me to stop by and check on you all. How is everything going today?”

Just then, Chat Noir made his grand appearance by dropping in from the sky, swirling down his staff like a fireman pole. When he hit the ground, he twirled the staff over his head as it telescoped back down to the short baton that fit in the clip on the small of his back. “Hiya, kids!” he crooned, and the children all squealed in delight. Ladybug just chuckled to herself.

“Show off,” she muttered.

“Jealous, much?” he grinned back, before somehow agreeing to take the kids on piggy-back rides and show them the telephone function on his baton. 

Ladybug approached the daycare staff and started quietly talking with them, making sure they had the resources they needed and seeing how she could help. They soon had Ladybug helping to clean the highest windows that were difficult to reach, but Chat Noir still stole the show. Not that it _was_ a show, but she still found herself watching him in awe as he goofed around with the kids. After a few minutes, Ladybug finished her cleaning made to leave—eager to get a head-start on Chat and their bet, but then she heard him start singing to one of the tiniest little girls in a nightgown, and Ladybug paused. 

_“When your goodnights have been said and you are lying in bed with the covers pulled up tight,_

_And though you count every sheep you get the feeling that sleep is going to stay away tonight…”_

Ladybug leaned into her yo-yo string harness that was keeping her suspended to the rooftop, craning her body to listen to his quiet melody. She wasn’t sure she recognized the song or its source, but his voice was tender and careful, and, not for the first time this evening, she found herself gawking at Chat Noir. He always seemed to surprise her at the most unusual times. Who knew he had such a nice singing voice?

* * *

Ladybug made it to the prison for their second stop of the evening with a good lead on Chat Noir, so she was already thumbing through boxes of books donated to the small prison library when he sidled up beside her. “What, no grand entrance this time?” she teased.

He shrugged and grinned, “You liked that, huh? I could make a repeat performance later, if you’d like—”

“I’m sure that wouldn’t be necessary.” She winked at him and he blushed lightly. “The guards asked us to go through these boxes of donations just to make sure there wasn’t anything written in the books. So, there you go. Congratulations, you don’t have to come up with your own idea this time.”

He shook his blonde mane out and laughed, “ _I’m_ not the one who had to talk to the adults at the daycare to think of something to do…”

She teasingly threw a book at his head; he caught it just before it would have smacked him in the face. “Hey!” he barked, “If you’re going to throw a book at me, at least let it be one of those little romance novels, not this brick—” he checked the title and his eyes popped, “ _Les Miserables?_ You chucked an unabridged version of _Les Miserables_ at my head!”

“Yeah?” she snickered, “And you deserved it! What’re you going to do about it, Kitty?”

He thumbed through the pages quickly and muttered to himself, “No need to check this one; nobody in their right mind would read it all the way through…”

“Are you kidding me?” Ladybug scoffed, now checking another book, “That’s a classic! Don’t tell me you’ve never read it.”

“Oh, I’ve read it,” he smiled, “which is how I know nobody in their right mind would read it.”

“Are you saying you’re not in your right mind?” 

He arched an eyebrow (at least, his mask looked like he did), “Well, Milady, aren’t you just full of one-liners tonight…” She blushed and turned away, feeling called out by her flirtatious partner. She turned back to the book in her hands as Chat Noir murmured, “And no, I’m not in my right mind; you know I’m crazy. Crazy about _you.”_

“Oh Chat,” she sighed, but her heart wasn’t in her rebuttal and he knew it. As much as she adored Adrien, she still got a kick out Chat Noir’s antics and he made her feel special. “Just finish checking the books.” She checked the clock on her yo-yo. “Oh!” she grinned at him, “My time is up! And I just finished my half of the box. Good luck with the rest of it!” She zipped off to their next destination, but as she waved good-bye to the guards on duty, she heard Chat Noir whistling the tune to ‘Do You Hear the People Sing?’ and had to smile in wonder once more.

* * *

Ladybug had rescued several hats and a handful of garbage from the more remote sections of the Eiffel Tower and had been lazing on the precinct roof for a solid twenty minutes when Chat Noir finally arrived.

“Beat ya!” she yawned.

He only grinned. “Alright,” he said in a ridiculous accent, “We’ll call it a draw.” She shot him a look that could kill, and he chuckled. “So, I guess you want to know what I’ve been up to this week.”

“Yeah, but I do wonder what in the world took you so long.”

He shrugged and swished his tail, “I might have found a couple more people that needed help after you left the Eiffel Tower.”

She pouted, “Did you throw the game?”

“Now why would I do that?” he purred innocently. The intensity of his eyes made her heart skip a beat. In an attempt to hide her suddenly shaky knees, she walked to the edge of the building and changed the subject.

“So, now it’s finally time, Chat Noir. Spill it.”

He grinned wickedly. “You’re going to have to follow me,” he winked. He dove off the edge of the building and helicoptered his way across the rooftops of Paris. She gasped at his speed, but then used her yo-yo to follow. He ducked between buildings, through tunnels, over alleys and to a dark corner of town. Suddenly, he skidded to a halt. Not prepared for his abrupt stop, Ladybug plowed into his back. The two tumbled forward. He whipped around and caught her against his chest, allowing himself to slam into the ground just to keep her safe. There, wrapped in his arms, Ladybug had to catch her breath. He was so close, so real, so warm… He was Chat Noir! 

She jumped backwards, arms flailing, “Oh, Chat, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to run into you—”

“Purrfectly alright,” he grinned. “We go down from here.” He walked to a corner of an alley, looked around carefully, and pointed out an ornate carving of an elephant. “Now, pull the lever,” he grinned excitedly.

“Uh…” she asked, looking at the carving and not seeing a lever anywhere.

“The tusk. Pull the tusk.”

She reached over and pulled one of the elephant’s tusks and was shocked when it actually moved. Even more horrifying—with that one slight movement, Chat Noir disappeared. He was howling somewhere. What in the world? Petrified, she looked around and saw a spring-loaded platform that had launched Chat Noir into the sky when she’d pulled the lever. “What in the—CHAT! Are you ok?” She looked up and saw him hanging from the edge of the roof above her. “Chat! I’m sorry!” He slunk back down the wall and to her side once more. “What even was that? A booby trap?”

He was wheezing with a combination of humor and fright, “You pulled the wrong lever.”

She scowled, “Why do they even have that lever? It makes no sense!”

“Pull the _other_ lever, Ladybug,” he insisted. 

She wrapped an arm around his waist. When he looked at her hand firmly holding on to him, he grinned wickedly. “What?” she scoffed, “If the left lever yeets you to the roof, I’m naturally nervous about what the other will do.”

“Trust me,” he assured. “Pull it.”

She half closed her eyes and pulled the right tusk and the ground beneath her fell away. She was falling, screaming, shocked and surprised, but the fall was brief, and she landed in some kind of a cart. The cart then careened down a track, spiraling almost out of control. She was only vaguely aware of Chat Noir laughing beside her, his hands in the air above him. The cart came to a halt and Ladybug clutched her chest. 

“What in the world was _that_?” she growled. 

Chat Noir hopped out of the cart and held a hand out for her. She tentatively took it. “The entrance,” he said proudly. 

“The entrance? To what?”

“To the Cat Cave!” He swept a hand in front of him and pushed a button on the wall. Fluorescent lights blinked to life, illuminating a dingy room with some computers, a big map of Paris, and a wall of gadgets. 

“C-Cat Cave?” she stammered.

“Yeah!” Chat Noir bounced excitedly, “Every superhero needs a secret hideout, and this is ours! I was going to save it for your birthday, but then I realized I didn’t know when your birthday was, so I’m going to pretend it’s today. Was I right?”

She giggled, “No, but you’re cute. Wait!” she gasped, realizing that she’d just called Chat Noir _cute._

“Nope,” he shook his head fervently, “No take-backs. You called me cute and that’s final. Too bad, so sad.”

She glared playfully and started checking out the wall of gadgets. “Chat,” she breathed, “This really is amazing. How did you find it? Or did you build it?”

He smiled and wagged his eyebrows, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Oh, he was going to play hard to get, was he? “Yes,” she decided to sweat it out of him. She walked forward with a sway in her hips, and flicking his bell, “I really would like to know.”

With her so close, he gulped, “Uh…” She kept walking forward, pushing him back into the wall behind him. The boy caved, spluttering, “Uh, the room is an old bomb shelter used by the French resistance.” She nodded in respectful confirmation. Regaining some of his swagger, Chat Noir puffed out his chest and added, “But the entrance is new.”

“And the booby trap was probably your idea,” she winked.

“Oh, Milady,” he grinned, leaning into her space this time (she held her ground), “it was _all_ my idea. Did you know that a very well-placed Cataclysm can create a tunnel right where I want it?”

She looked back at the cart and tunnel entrance. Now that she wasn’t overcome with surprise, she could appreciate the details. “It’s… it’s really impressive, Chat. Amazing, actually. But,” her mind suddenly jumped to a place of concern, “are we going to get in trouble for being down here?”

He shook his head proudly, “Nope, it was donated to us by the city of Paris. Well, I was given my pick of several locations and didn’t have to divulge to anyone which I actually chose, so even if the people who knew about it got akumatized, they wouldn’t be able to leak the location of our super-secret-hideout.”

She giggled at his attention to detail. “You really thought this through, didn’t you?”

His tail swished happily, “Does that mean you like it?”

She wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him in for a warm hug. “I love it, Chat Noir.”

He hugged her back. “Just think of all the fun things we can do! I mean,” he back pedaled, “all the superhero-y things we can do down here. For Paris.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Like tracking Hawkmoth?”

“Yeah, like tracking Hawkmoth. I’ve got some computers,” he pointed at them on the desk. “Pegasus helped me load them up with some pretty high-tech software. And the gadgets over here?” he pointed at the wall of interesting objects, “Monsieur Damo—I mean, The Owl donated most of those.” She snickered into his chest. “I know, I know, I got a kick out of it too, but he was so eager to help. And many of them are actually useful!” 

Ladybug kept her arm around his waist while he gave her the grand tour, pointing out every detail of the room. There was a safe, a small refrigerator full of the most foul-smelling cheese Ladybug had ever encountered, a box of macarons (Ladybug stammered when she noticed they’d come from her family’s Boulangerie-Patisserie) that Chat Noir said were for Tikki, even a small table and comfortable chairs for if they needed to work late. 

Ladybug was grinning when he finally stepped back and smiled, “So, I was thinking we could set up a more regular patrol schedule and meet up here afterwards to work on tracking Hawkmoth and stuff.”

“I’ve got one more addition I need to make, though,” she said cryptically. “It’ll take me a few minutes. stay here, ok?”

He looked at her suspiciously, and then she climbed back in the cart and pushed a button; the cart bounced to life and took her back to the entrance. It took her seven minutes round-trip—to her room and back here—and then she was sliding back down the chute and into the cart and Chat Noir was still standing in the middle of the room pretending to be frozen like a statue. His face broke into a smile when he saw her. She clambered out of the cart, her precious bundle in her arms.

“What’s that?” he asked softly.

She held up the Miracle Box. “I’ve been trying to figure out a safe place for this,” she smiled. “I tried the bottom of my underwear drawer for a while,” Chat Noir blushed furiously at the mention of her underwear, “Or in the chest where I keep all the Christmas gifts I’ve been making for my friends—”

“Christmas gifts?” he interjected, “It’s August!”

“Shh,” she scolded and pressed on, “but nowhere felt really secure, you know? Well, thanks to you, I think I’ve finally found a good spot.” 

“Good spot? _Spot?_ ” he grinned, pointing at the spotted Miracle Box.

“Pun not intended!”

“Nope,” he laughed in delight, “Puns are always intended around here!”

Ladybug rolled her eyes and put the Miracle Box in the safe he had hidden in the corner. “What’s the combination for the safe?” she half-shouted over his ongoing laughter.

“That’s one last surprise,” he said, still snickering at his own joke, “we can set it together.” 

She rocked back on her heels. “Um… well, what’s a good set of numbers we can remember?”

The rim of his mask lifted with his hopeful eyebrows, “How about your real birthday?”

She frowned, “You know that’s not safe.”

“Safe! There you go, punning again!”

“ _Chat!_ ”

“Ok,” he playfully sobered up and started setting the tumblers carefully, “Nine… Eight…” he checked the clock on his baton phone, “twenty-seven.”

“Uh,” she hesitated, “those are random numbers.”

“No they’re not,” he smiled softly, “They’re your Ladybug birthday.”

“Hang on,” she pondered, “Nine-eight… that’s today’s date. And the twenty-seven is…”

He checked his baton and counted silently for a few seconds before nodding and looking up at her, “The minute I officially gave you your Ladybug birthday present. Happy birthday, Ladybug!”

She checked his clock. It did indeed read 21:27. She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t stop grinning. It really was quite overwhelming, and amazingly generous. She leaned forward and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Thank you so much, Chat Noir. This is amazing. I don’t know how to pay you back.”

His pupils were wide, and his fingers hovered over the place her lips had brushed. “Marry me?” he gasped.

She giggled and slumped backward. “Nice try. But I could probably be convinced to go on a date with you.”

“You could be… convinced…” he processed her words briefly before bouncing up and down at the prospect of a date. “Wait,” he realized what she’d said, “convinced? So, what do I have to do to convince you?”

“Easy,” she teased, leaning in so her breath danced across his lips and made him blush with desire, “all you have to do,” she was a centimeter away from him and could feel his breath coming out in rattling little gasps, “is catch me.”

“Huh?”

But she was already gone, up and out the entrance, then racing across Paris, her laugh falling out of her in musical peals. It only took a few blocks before she slowed her pace slightly. It wouldn’t be fair, after all, to not give him _some_ chance of catching up, right?


End file.
